The present invention relates to user-interactive computer supported display technology and, particularly, to such user-interactive systems and methods which provide interactive users with user friendly interfaces for building software program statements such as search queries for database management and access.
The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past few years. As a result of these changes it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human/computer interfaces. There is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to people who, up until a few years ago, were computer illiterate or, at best, computer indifferent.
Thus, there is continuing demand for display interfaces to computers and networks which improve the ease of use for the interactive user to access functions and data from the computer. With desktop-like interfaces including windows and icons, as well as three-dimensional virtual reality simulating interfaces, the computer industry has been working hard to fulfill such interface needs. However, in the area of database management, interfaces to the databases appear to be formidable obstacles to a great many users who would have considerable needs for data access. Of course, database access and management historically is one of the original primary computer functions, and, as such, it is full of language and functions developed and communicated between computer professionals. As a result, database management and access may be somewhat esoteric and foreboding to the new computer users in businesses and personal computer situations in which they most benefit from the development of and access to databases. Terms such as relational databases (RDBMS) structured query language (SQL) searches have put off such users. Less sophisticated users find it very difficult to frame SQL search queries out of the relatively complex language. As a result, except for some limited access to databases through spreadsheets, the bulk of new computer users have shown a reluctance to venture into database organization and database searching. Accordingly, the computer industries are trying to address the need to make interfaces for database organization less foreboding and more user friendly.
The present invention provides a user-interactive display interface implementation for building structured software program statements and, particularly, such structured statements that may serve as search queries to databases. This display interface implementation comprises a plurality of display rows together with means enabling the entry of program terms into each of said rows. A template is provided that is vertically movable to each of said rows and includes a template row of indicators, each defining a type of program term enabled to be positioned in said row coincident with said indicator. There are a plurality of user-activatable menus of selectable terms, each menu respectively associated with one of said indicators. The selectable terms in each of the menus are respectively of the term type enabled to be positioned coincident with the associated indicator. Then, for editing purposes, there are user-interactive means for selecting one of said indicators to thereby display the menu associated with the selected indicator. Preferably, the selected menu is a scrolled menu from the selected indicator. The program or search query statements being built are sequential and preferably wrap from at least one of said rows to the next row.
When this display interface implementation is used to build search queries, then the rows in the array are enabled for the entry of search terms. In this search query building, the search term types may be the classes of properties, operators and values for the selected properties.